Parlez-vous wine labels?

Does wine label lingo leave you scratching your head? It's bad enough when we can't read the language, but what about all that mumbo jumbo on those California bottles? Don't let it get you down. Wine makers do have a language all their own, but it's one of the easiest romance languages to learn. And you don't have to learn French or Italian or German or Spanish or... well you get the idea. You only need to understand the importance of the information on the label to know what you are buying.

Any good wine book will explain how to read labels from different countries, including the United States. A nice introductory book to wine is "Discovering Wine", by Joanna Simon. She offers a simple, straight-forward approach for beginners and has a description in each countries' section of how to read the labels. Another favorite of mine is the "Wine Lover's Companion", by Ron and Sharon Tyler Herbst. This book functions more like a glossary of wines and wine-related terms and is great for every level of wine connoisseur. It also has some great appendixes, one of which explains the information on different wine labels around the world (with excellent illustrations). You may not wish to invest in a book at this time, but I do recommend doing so at a later date. It's a good thing to have on hand, and you can always check out your local used book stores for a good deal. (As of writing this blog, both publishers have released newer editions, by the same authors, than the ones I have referred to. The links are to these editions, so check to make sure the information you are searching for is still included.)

For those of you not interested in purchasing something right now, I've included a great link to information on reading and understanding wine labels. Robin Garr's Wine Lover's Page is full of simple and concise directions to getting around the in and outs of a wine label. Invest a little time in reading about wine and believe me, you will reap the benefits.